Great Migration

The Great Migration was the movement of 6,000,000 African-Americans from the rural American South into the urban centers of the northeast, Midwest, and American West from 1910 to 1970, caused by a lack of social and economic opportunities in the South and widespread racism. During the 1910s, labor agents were sent out by businessmen to recruit southern workers to work in steel mills, on railroads, in meatpacking plants, and in the automobile industry, booming industries during the decade. The northern companies offered free transportation and low-cost housing to African-Americans, leading to millions of black people in the rural South moving into urban centers to become laborers. The Great Migration led to the development of the concept of the "inner city", with many African-American workers settling in urban areas and forming communities there. Between 1900 and 1970, the percentage of African-Americans living in the South dropped from 90% to a mere 53%. The Great Migration is related to "White Flight", the period in the 20th century during which middle-class and upper-class whites moved into the suburbs to escape urban sprawl, leaving the "inner cities" in poverty. The Great Migration has led to the development of major African-American communities in New York City, Newark, Chicago, and Los Angeles, with California and Nevada seeing at least a 10,000% increase in their African-American populations; only Kentucky had a declining black population.